Geography Professor Plans Geoarchaeology Trip to Belize

Geography professor Nicholas Dunning and a select group of students will conduct an ongoing investigation of ancient Maya impacts on the natural environment in northwestern Belize as part of a physical geography field methods course April 28th through May 10.

Activities will include excavation and profiling of human-generated sediment deposits, ancient Maya agricultural terraces that were designed to check erosion, and take aquatic sediment samples for analysis of ancient pollen.

Participating students will have taken an introductory physical geography sequence or its equivalent as background for the course. Several class meetings and reading assignments will be done in April in preparation for the trip and class. The field course will take place in and around the Rio Bravo conservation and management area of the Programme for Belize.

Participants will be staying in a rustic, but comfortable camp in the middle of an area of nearly pristine rainforest and will also have the opportunity to study several variations of ecotourism as currently practiced in this part of Belize.

Students interested in the trip:

Students should register for Geog 579 (Field Work and Research Methods). This course is open to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students. Additional credit can be arranged through Geography or Latin American Studies.